Bloomington, IL Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Bloomington folds digital billboards and electronic message centers into the same permit track as any other sign category rather than writing a separate ordinance for them. Under Section 3-508(C), any sign otherwise permitted by the Advertising Sign Code, except a nameplate, can be built as a manual or automatic changeable-copy sign or an automatic changing sign, covering everything from a gas station price sign to an LED reader board, but the applicant must declare that intent during the permit process so the Administrator, the Director of Economic & Community Development or a designee, can review and approve it before installation.

The Code separately defines an 'Automatic Changing Sign' as an electronically or electrically controlled time, temperature, date, or message-center display where different copy shows on the same lamp bank, and classifies these as changing signs rather than flashing signs, which are banned outright. That distinction matters because Section 3-601(A) prohibits any sign with exposed incandescent lamps over 40 watts, revolving beacons, or sequential flashing where more than two-thirds of the lights switch at once, but it carves digital message centers out of that ban on the condition, in Subsection (A)(5), that every message center run a functional automatic dimming device set to dim the display at dusk to the equivalent of a 20-watt lamp. A digital sign that skips the dimmer or was never declared on its permit application is treated as noncompliant with the Sign Code.